Chris Brown and Rihanna: A teachable moment wasted

Elizabeth Mendez Berry and Salamishah Tillet

In the era of the 24-hour news cycle and 140-character fiascoes, damage control is swift. In the past few weeks, ESPN staffers were fired over a racist headline and CNN commentator Roland Martin was suspended for two homophobic tweets. He has since signed on to collaborate with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Switch from verbal offenses to physical violence and one would expect calls for accountability to intensify, but when it comes to attacks on women (as opposed to attacks on dogs, as Michael Vick learned) that's rarely the case — the path to public rehabilitation seems to come with an E-ZPass and no public service announcements. Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger have barely apologized for their behavior, and they've held onto lucrative gigs and endorsements despite it. The message: Famous men are more valuable than the women they put their hands on.

Three years ago, however, then-19-year-old Chris Brown's assault on his equally famous girlfriend Rihanna painted a more complicated picture. The leaked photographs of Rihanna's bruised face provided indelible proof; the court record, hideous details: Brown punched her until her mouth filled with blood and then choked her until she began to lose consciousness. It was the most graphic case to hit the Facebook generation and, occurring as it did during Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, it revived interest in a problem that affects one in five Chicago youth as no public education campaign could have.

As a result, Brown is the rare celebrity abuser who has been held accountable: he was found guilty of felony assault and is serving his sentence (which includes no jail time). He lost endorsements and fans. When the Grammys welcomed him back this month, many felt he deserved it: He's a talented young singer, he apologized and his probation officer gives him top marks.

When it comes to the larger issue of ending violence against girls and women, little good has come of it. People chose sides and assigned blame, picking Team Rihanna or Team Breezy as if someone wins at the end. At A Long Walk Home, the Chicago community organization we work with, 53 percent of participants in Girl/Friends, our North Lawndale program for teenage girls, have been in abusive relationships. In 2009, half of our participants assumed Rihanna had done something to "deserve" Brown's violence. We had educated them about sexual assault, and in such cases they never blamed the victim, but when it came to relationship abuse, they still had that tendency.

We began addressing dating violence, helping girls understand that women are not responsible for the abuse inflicted on them.

The Chris Brown case transformed our approach, but at a national level, it was a teachable moment without the follow-through. That was clear from Brown's outbursts when asked about the attack, and the troubling responses of his female fans. During his Grammy comeback, young women tweeted comments like "Chris Brown can punch me wherever he wants."

Days after this year's Grammys, news emerged that Brown and Rihanna were collaborating. Brown's opening line on Rihanna's "Birthday Cake" remix is: "Girl, I wanna ---- you right now/Been a long time, I've been missing your body." The X-rated track is a marketer's dream, but to many others, it's also a happy ending. Brown is paying his debt to society — which most abusers never do — and if Rihanna is ready to forgive, how could anyone else refuse? If they have decided to reconcile, that is their choice, troubling as it might be. Rihanna is not the first woman to reunite with her abuser, and she won't be the last.

The irony is that female survivors of dating violence are expected not only to recover from the trauma, but to become sole spokespeople against it. The responsibility for holding Brown accountable is not Rihanna's alone. He's a public figure, and it's our collective duty. Awards ceremonies like the Grammys — whose executive producer claimed the show itself was the "victim of what happened" — "BET Awards" and Univision's "Premios Lo Nuestro," all of which have celebrated Brown since his attack on Rihanna, do so because there are no real repercussions.

Within weeks of Tracy Morgan's anti-gay comments at a Nashville comedy club, he was back in Tennessee meeting with young people whose parents disowned them because of their sexuality. He shifted the focus from his gaffe to the real lives affected by homophobia, and became an ally. Brown should follow Morgan's lead and publicly partner with dating violence prevention groups. Instead, he's demonstrated little understanding of violence against women as it affects anything other than his career. As audiences, we must demand he step up for the sake of the millions of girls and women whose black eyes would never be leaked to TMZ.

The fact that we haven't says more about us than it does about him.

Elizabeth Mendez Berry is an award-winning journalist and the author of Vibe Magazine's "Love Hurts." Salamishah Tillet is co-founder of A Long Walk Home, a Chicago nonprofit that uses art to end violence against girls and women, and an assistant professor of English and Africanastudies at the University of Pennsylvania.